Chapter Text
Varian is 14 when the Galra attack. Corona is a peaceful planet, one of bright sunshine, brilliant flora, and gentle fauna.
It’s also, at least to Varian, boring. He longs to travel the stars, find planets of technological and scientific innovations beyond their wildest dreams. Quirin, their father, had done his best to provide books and tools for Varian’s experiments, but it’s not enough.
So while his village is running and screaming, Varians stands in his doorway, mouth agape, staring at the sky where Galra ships face off against a warrior Varian’s only ever heard of in legends. Voltron, the robot built of five lions and manned by the bravest in the galaxy, the Paladins.
Eventually, the Glara ships are destroyed, and the Voltron lions land outside the village. The paladins are younger than Varian expected, with the eldest in his mid-twenties. The rest are clearly still teenagers, and the paladin of the green lion looks to be Varian’s own age.
“Paladins, we’re so grateful for your assistance.” Quirin’s voice booms over the crowd, the eldest paladin stepping forward.
“Your thanks is appreciated, but not necessary. It’s our mission to defeat the Galra, and free the universe from their rule.”
Quirin dips his head. “Still, allow us to show out thanks. Stay, we will throw a celebration in your name.”
“That’s really not-”
The eldest’s protests are drowned out by cheers from the paladins of the blue and yellow lions.
“Partyyy!!!!”
“A party sounds great, I’m starving.”
The paladin in red shrugs. “Why not? Might be nice to get a break.”
The paladin in black sighs. “Ok, we’ll stay.”
The village cheers, and Varian does too. Internally. A party means the paladins will be busy, preoccupied. He’ll be able to sneak aboard one of the lions, look around, maybe convince one of the paladins to let them go with! A chance to at least see the inside of a technological marvel, with the possibility of finally leaving Corona? For once, a party doesn’t sound too bad.
↠⛤↞
Varian waits until the party is in full swing, drinks in everyone’s hands and the paladins busy, before they sneak off. Nobody’ll look for them, the village is more than used to him just disappearing during a party to hide somewhere.
The first lion they come across is the green one, and they circle it, looking for an entrance. There’s no obvious entrance, besides the mouth, but he has no clue how to get it to open.
“Dammit. A wonder of technological advancement and I can’t get inside?” Varian leans their forehead against the mouth of the lion, sighing. “It makes sense, of course you wouldn’t open for someone other than your paladin. I just… I want to see more of the galaxy than this one town, y’know? There’s so much out there, so many worlds to discover!”
With a whir and a low purring sound, the mouth of the lion opens. Varian almost falls over, stumbling their way in. “Woah.” The inside of the green lion is even more glorious than the outside, and Varian ends up in the pilot’s chair, wondering at all the switches and screens. “Piloting you must take years of training and practice. I wonder how young your paladin was when they started?” He also, more privately, wonders how the paladins are chosen. If there was a selection process, a school or tournament of a kind, or if the lions just went out amongst the stars until they found someone worthy. If Varian could’ve been a paladin, given a chance.
The green lion makes a noise, almost a hello, and starts whirring. Varian hears a voice, the green paladin, on their way to the control chair. Hurriedly, he dives back, into a dark corner, cramming themselves into the smallest space possible.
“Hey girl, how are we doing? Not too banged up after the fight I hope. Ready to go home?”
With that, the lions leap into the sky, through the atmosphere. The little Varian can see from their hiding space is black, peppered with stars. But they’re in space!
The blue paladin’s voice breaks through Varian’s thoughts. “Hey Keith, race you back!”
The red paladin responds over what must be their comms system. “You’re on.”
What’s the range on those comms? Could they reach across a planet? A solar system? What about across galaxies?
The yellow paladin’s voice is next. “Can we ask Coran to start making dinner? I’m hungry.”
“Hunk, we just ate at that party.” The green paladin sounds weary, like this is a conversation they’ve had several times.
“I know, but it was all plants and like... ham sandwiches? Which I did not expect.”
“Their food was fairly similar to Earth’s, and their ecosystem seemed to function similarly too. Some of their flora were fascinating, like this one flower I found that glowed golden when sang to-”
The sundrop flower! Varian had heard the princess was obsessed with them, had a whole garden in the capital. They were rare, having been rendered nearly extinct by medicinal production.
Within minutes, Varian sees an enormous spacecraft approaching. The lions all make their way to various docking bays, including the green paladin. Varian tries to make themselves even less visible as the paladin disembarks.
When their footsteps fade out of earshot, Varian emerges. He pokes his head out into the docking bay, and, seeing nothing, slips out of the lion.
“Thanks for the ride.” Their whisper echoes a little, and they flinch, but there’s no sound to indicate they were discovered. Hopefully they can avoid being found out until the ship is too far away from Corona to double back. This ship is more technologically advanced than anything they’ve seen, and probably has a lab or library where they can explore more alchemy than the limited supplies at his dad’s farm allowed him.
“This is going to be…. amazing.”